


Let's Pretend

by demonsorceress



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Undercover Mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 11:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonsorceress/pseuds/demonsorceress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Undercover work: disguise of one's own identity for the purpose of gaining the trust of an organization to learn secret information."<br/>Or, Skye and Ward are sent to a benefit gala in an undercover mission as a couple, in order to prevent a mysterious thief from commiting a crime with a stolen alien weapon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Do what you want...

**Author's Note:**

> This is me ignoring the lack of Skyeward recently. Also ignoring the friends with benefits situation going on between Mayward. Hope you enjoy!

 

 “You ready?”

“About as ready as I was the last two times you asked,” she replied angrily. “Which means, _not ready_.”

He had been waiting outside her bunk for only five minutes and was already impatient. Life would be easier if women could get dressed as fast as men can, he thought.

“Hurry up, he said, with no actual hope that she would. “Fitzsimmons is waiting to set up our comms.”

“Come in, I can’t zip up this damn thing alone,” she complained.

What he found when he opened the door was Skye struggling to completely zip up the dress—the zipper was stuck near her bra clasp.

She held her hair, giving him space to zip up the dress as quickly as he could, trying not to touch her skin for some reason while mentally cursing whoever made such a fragile zipper.

“Done. Anything else?” He had faith she was finally prepared to leave.

When Skye turned to him, though, he decided that the wait had been worth it—she looked stunning in a blue plain dress long enough to touch the ground, hiding the heels that she was certainly wearing, judging by how close she was to his height, contrary to their usual height difference. Earlier, when the team had been planning the mission, she’d refused Simmons’s offer to do something in her hair. Ward was glad, since he liked the way her long hair flowed naturally over her shoulders. The amount of makeup in her face was as unnecessary as a fancy hairstyle, both of which she didn’t need. This was the prettiest Ward had ever seen Skye, something he wouldn’t admit.

“You could’ve picked a shorter dress,” he said as an excuse for having checked her out awkwardly. However, his attempt only made it worse once he realized how badly he had expressed his tactical thoughts. She glared at him in a daring way as her lips curved into a smirk. “I mean, in case we need to run.”

“I’m wearing a long dress for the same reason you’re in this good-looking tuxedo instead of jeans and a shirt. Do you understand anything about dress codes?” She mocked, and then her eyes widened like she’d just remembered something. “Just one more detail.” Skye turned around and grabbed a silver belt, wrapping it around her waist.

“Great, that really changes everything,” he said, indifferent. “Ready to be Henley?”

“Well, I am,” she guaranteed. “If you’re ready to be Daniel for a night.”

* * *

Earpieces in place and the fake couple was safe to go. The plan was quite simple: their goal was to hack into security system of the place and find out what else was happening there. All they knew was that, at the benefit gala they were heading to, a Chitauri weapon was going to be used. As to what for, they had no idea—it could be to hurt a guest or to blow the entire place up. They had agreed it would be more effective to send in two undercover agents instead of letting three field agents bust the party with guns and no knowledge of the situation’s level of seriousness.

Everything was ready. Time to go.

* * *

“Good luck, guys!” Jemma Simmons said in her usual excited state. There weren’t a lot of things able to destroy her great mood, except for a Chitauri virus.

Fitz, on the other hand, wasn’t as confident in Skye and Ward’s ability to pretend to be a couple as much as the other half of Fitzsimmons. “Please make an effort not to get yourselves killed,” he asked as the undercover pair entered the S.U.V.’s back seat.

Coulson settled beside the driver’s seat, occupied by May. Fitzsimmons was staying in the bus to monitor the security cameras and help the fake couple through the comms, while the two field agents left in the car would be waiting to go in as soon as they were informed of the criminals’ plan—or they would be backup in case something went wrong with the operation.

“Thanks for the helpful tip, Fitz,” Skye said sarcastically before closing the window of the car.

The ride to the mansion that was hosting the gala was half an hour long. That was enough time for the level 7 agents in the car to qui Skye to the point where she started feeling actual anguish about the operation.

“What are your names?” Coulson asked with no eye contact between him and Skye.

“Henley Clark and Daniel Hastings,” Skye answered mechanically, knowing she was the one being tested. Ward had gone undercover a few times before, and no one doubted he was able to remember a few facts about his covert identity. On the contrary, Skye had volunteered herself in order to prove she was trustworthy and capable of completing a mission.

How long—“

“Two years and three months,” she cuts May halfway through, as she knew what the question was beforehand. “We met in Los Angeles three years ago and started dating almost a year later. I work at the I.T. department of a company there... Daniel is a lawyer and _hella_ rich, thanks to his father’s inheritance, and may Michael Hastings rest in peace in his fake grave.” She said ironically. “Is that all?”

“Why are we here?” Ward inquired.

“You’re here because you’re a specialist and I’m here because Simmons is a terrible liar.” Coulson and Ward’s cold gazes made it clear that it wasn’t time for sarcasm. She sighed out loud before reciting: “We are on vacation here in France and were invited for this annual benefit gala at Arthur Blanchet’s mansion.”

Ward, Coulson and May exchanged looks that Skye couldn’t translate until her S.O. slash boyfriend for the night addressed: “Sir, I think she’s ready.”

* * *

“Welcome to the 7th Annual Benefit Gala at the Blanchet Mansion!” The hostess greeted them in a heavy French accent. “We hope you enjoy the evening, Mr. Hastings and Mrs. Clark.”

“We certainly will, thank you,” Ward replied politely.

They made their way into the ballroom, mentally scanning all the hallways they could go through if in need of an escape route.  Ward was fairly concentrated on his task until Fitzsimmons’s voices interrupted his thoughts through the comms.

“Practically the entire place is covered by cameras, lucky for you,” Simmons said in between crunchy chewing noises. “And I can see the two of you _not_ looking like a couple.”

“Not at all,” Fitz confirmed. “It feels like you’re opposite poles of a magnet.

They both moved closer to each other at the same time, causing their shoulders to bump. Skye stifled a chuckle as she saw Ward rolling his eyes. He awkwardly put his hands around her waist.

“Perfect. Now smile,” Fitz ordered, and Skye knew he had a grin on his face even though she couldn’t see him.

Her fake boyfriend looked confused for a moment before curving his lips into a soft half-smile. Skye couldn’t help the giggle that followed.

They finally entered the elegant ballroom, and the place pretty much smelled like rich people. The hall was filled with well-dressed men and women, some of them dancing harmoniously to the sound of a classical band playing in the corner.

A waiter immediately approached them. Ward—or Daniel—politely took two glasses of champagne out of the tray, cordially handing one of them to Skye with a smile on his face. She could barely contain the urge to laugh at me—cheerful Ward was hilarious.

Skye was having lots of fun planning ways to embarrass him. After all, it wasn’t everyday she had the opportunity to say whatever she wanted to her S.O., and he couldn’t do a single thing about it, since they were passing as a couple.

She looked delighted as she stood on the tips of her toes to straighten the lapels of his jacket, and then whispered in his ear: “You look very handsome in this tuxedo, Danny.”

Ward wasn’t sure if the remark had come from Skye or from Henley, but her fake personality had only agreed with the real one about him looking quite attractive.

“You look dazzling as well, _sweetheart_ ,” he replied sarcastically.

“Look at you two all couple-y,” Simmons said, overjoyed. Ward wished he could tell her to shut up without looking like a lunatic.

“There’s a guy staring at you two, don’t do anything stupid,” Fitz warned. Skye itched to look around; instead, she gazed passionately at her fake boyfriend and brought up her glass to take a sip of the champagne.

“Don’t drink,” he instructed in a whisper, lifting his glass too. “We can’t drink except if highly necessary.

She kept an observant eye on his lips as they met the glass. When the champagne touched his mouth, he didn’t take his lips away from the glass, so it looked like he was drinking it but nothing actually went into his mouth. To keep the illusion, he swallowed saliva. Skye did the same carefully.

“This is great,” she said, so it looked like she was talking about the taste of the beverage in case anyone had heard them, when she was actually referring to the trick she had just learned.

“That guy is walking toward you,” Fitz said nervously. “We ran facial recognition on him, so you can pretend to know who he is.”

“His name is Frank Dufort, from Dufort Softwares, founded by his grandfather,” Simmons explained. “Lives here in the country… I don’t know whether he speaks English or not.”

“ _Bonsoir_!”

The guy greeted them nicely—maybe even too nicely. He shook Ward’s hand and exchanged kisses on both cheeks with Skye. Her face at the second kiss almost made Ward laugh—she wasn’t sure if that was common for the French and she was too wary.

“You Americans?” He said in a heavy accent.

“Yes,” Ward answered. “I’m Daniel Hastings, and this is my girlfriend, Henley.” He put his hands around her waist, gently pulling her closer.

“Nice to meet you,” Skye added as the guy smiled a bit excessively at her.

“Frank Dufort, very pleased to meet you,” he introduced himself slowly, clearly not used to the language. “What bring you to France?”

Skye and Ward exchanged a quick look like they were deciding who should answer. When he was about to start, though, she said:

“Well, he says he’s here for business, but didn’t complain when I took him to the Orsay Museum two days ago,” she joked spontaneously and watched as Ward laughed, pretending to be slightly annoyed by the comment. The Dufort guy laughed a bit too loud, making Skye wonder if he had understood a word she’d said and wasn’t just shamelessly flirting with her. Or with Ward—who knows?

Frank Dufort suddenly peered at the band and smiled, as if the song that had just started pleased him. He then turned to Ward and asked something in French. Skye didn’t understand what he said, but it made Ward embrace her more firmly, which nurtured her curiosity. She had no idea what Ward’s answer meant either, but it evidently hadn’t amused Dufort. The French man nodded respectfully as if saying goodbye and walked away.

“What did you say?” She asked in a low tone.

“Nothing important,” he promptly replied. Skye didn’t have time to point out that she was sure he had lied, though. Ward called a waiter with a gesture and handed him both of their full glasses. He grabbed her hands and a smile lit up his face in contrast with the uptight look in his eyes. “May I have the pleasure of this dance?”

“ _What?_ ” She let it slip in shock before recomposing her-Henley-self. “I can’t dance. I’m _awful_ at this, I just—“

“No problem.” He rested a hand on her waist, leading her into the center of the ballroom, where pretty much everyone was dancing now. “Just follow my moves.”

“Your _moves_ ,” she mocked him, trying to mask her anxiety. Skye had never danced like this with someone. She was certainly going to make a fool of herself.

In addition, she could hear Fitzsimmons’s low giggles through her earpiece. She imagined them watching the security cameras, eating popcorn and having fun like kids at the movies.

“I swear, when this is over and we go back to the Bus, I will lock Fitzsimmons in the utility closet for a week.” They didn’t answer, but she knew they’d heard her when the giggling stopped.

As soon as that song finished and another one started playing, Skye slid embarrassingly into Ward’s arms. She felt her heart leap a little when his hands settled on her back. They were probably the slowest, clumsiest couple to ever step on that ballroom. He knew what he was doing, while she looked like she had two left feet.

“Guys, the hallway that leads to the control room is right in front of you… The one next to the reddish painting,” Simmons said. Meanwhile, Skye and Ward whirled around the perimeter of the dance floor. “As you already know, though, there’s nothing else in the end of that path, so you’ll have to be discreet and careful.”

“We can do that,” Skye assured, more like trying to convince herself than Fitzsimmons.

“The inside of the control room obviously isn’t covered by cameras, so we won’t see you and we don’t know how many guards are in there,” Fitz continued. “It’s a small space, though, so I’m betting on two, three at most.”

“How many outside?” Ward asked, unconsciously moving closer to Skye to the point where they weren’t even dancing, just circling. Not that they were _dancing_ before.

“A bunch, Arthur Blanchet’s a paranoid! There are two up that big stairwell, two in the main entrance, and one covering each hallway, including the one you need to go through.” The biochemist described.

“Good news is:” her engineer partner went on. “The guard in _that_ specific hallway keeps sneaking out to smoke. So unprofessional. Start moving closer and we’ll warn you when he’s out.”

“Does this mean we have to keep dancing until the guy decides to smoke?” Skye murmured desperately. “Also, I’m hungry and the food here is too fancy for me. Can we get fast food after this?”

“Focus, _Henley_!” Ward emphasized.

“Sorry, dancing isn’t my thing.”

“You don’t say,” he bittered.

“Well, next time you think about dragging me to the dance floor… _Don’t_.” She accidentally stepped on his foot. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing and start laughing at yourself,” Simmons advised. “This isn’t a dance competition! Henley and Daniel are just having fun.”

Skye followed the other, gazing at her uncoordinated feet and letting out a chuckle.

“This is harder than hacking into SHIELD was.”

Ward rolled his eyes. “Apparently you can’t stay in character for more than five seconds, so, new plan: you stay quiet as we dance. Okay?”

“Rude, man,” she teased in an attempt to contain a grin. Another song ended and was followed by an even slower one. “I’m going to fall asleep.”

“Great,” he replied, suddenly pulling her closer. Skye’s only option was to rest her cheek against the soft fabric in his shoulder, forcing Ward to smell the vanilla scent of her recently washed hair. She shyly placed a hand on his nape, leading to him twitching his head uncomfortably at the touch.

“ _God_ , I forgot you were so ticklish,” she muttered with a smirk.

“Sorry to interrupt the lovely moment you two are clearly having…” They heard Fitz’s voice in their ears.

“The security guard is leaving now. You’re clear to go.” Simmons affirmed. “Be careful!”

Perfect timing. Neither of them could handle any more of that dancing weirdness.

“Finally,” Ward said as they separated. “Now we act.”


	2. ...and blame it on your fake identity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wasn't supposed to be so long but I lost control and I don't want to split it up and make this a three-chapter story so I'm going to leave it like this. Hope you like it!

 

They started calmly making their way to their destination, hands glued together. The hallway was short, ending in a mysterious black door that they knew was the barrier between them and the control room.

It wouldn’t be so easy, though. They were halfway through crossing the hallway when Simmons’s voice startled them.

“Bloody hell, the security guard is coming back. He must’ve seen you!”

In a split second, Ward cursed out all of humanity.

“Do something! Quick! You can say that you—“

Simmons cut herself in the middle of the sentence when they watched what Skye did through the security cameras and her jaw dropped as the same time as Fitz’s. She abruptly fisted the lapels of Ward’s jacket in order to balance herself better in those giant heels and pressed a flustered kiss to his lips. After a moment of pure shock as the air left his longs, Ward responded to the kiss, and her back hitting the wall didn’t stop it. As her body was pressed between Ward’s and the wall and their lips moved together perfectly, Skye could barely remember why she’d done it in the first place—all she wondered was why she hadn’t done it before.

The kiss was longer than it should have but not as long as they both secretly wished.

“Uh, guys…” Fitz interrupted awkwardly. “The security guard already left.”

“You can…” Simmons tried to choose the right words between _stop_ , _focus_ and _pull yourselves together_. “I mean, get the job done.”

 _And get a room later_ , Fitz thought about adding but kept his mouth shut.

As soon as their lips parted, Skye panicked. Being sure Ward would be very pissed and never look at her the same way again, she stared at the ground, drowning in embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry, I—“ She murmured. “I thought… Uh, blame it on Henley. She’s _very_ impulsive.”

The look on his face made it clear that, although he wasn’t buying Skye’s poor excuse, he couldn’t care less.

“I’ll go in first, alone, and you wait here,” he rolled up his sleeves. “After I take down the guards, you enter, okay?”

“Copy that, Swiss army knife,” she joked, trying to ease up the awkward feeling between them. She was actually a bit concerned to let him go in blind, considering they didn’t know what waited inside, but she didn’t say anything in order not to accidentally imply she didn’t think he was able to work it out on his own. He was probably upset enough already for her impetuous reaction.

“Be careful,” she said under her breath in the lowest possible voice, but he heard it anyway.

“Always am.”

The door was locked, so Ward moved a few steps away from the door and said to Skye: “Get back!”

He waited a few seconds and then violently kicked the door open, exposing three startled security guards who got up from their chairs as soon as they saw Ward. The guard that was closer to him pulled out his gun and pointed it at Ward, but the specialist instantly yanked it from his hand and knocked him down by hitting his temple with the grip of the pistol.

The other two guards weren’t so easy to fight, making Ward wonder if the first one had been only a scared tech guy.

There were lots of punching, struggling and groans of pain from both Ward and the security guards, until one of them dropped Ward to the ground and Skye heard the sound of a gun cocking. The second guard pointed the gun at his head while the first one was stuck between Ward’s frantically-moving body and the floor, his arms clenched around the agent’s neck, choking him vigorously.

She hesitated for a moment before snatching one of her pointy heels and stumbling inside the room. Using a shoe as a weapon—which she thought was as undercover-y as it could get—Skye smacked the guard in the back of his neck with all the strength she had. A second later, his unconscious, heavy body fell to the ground after letting out a loud grunt.

Taking advantage of the last guard’s momentary distraction, Ward escaped from his embrace and elbowed his face three times, enough to draw blood out of his nose until he blacked out. Skye rushed and fell to her knees beside a breathless Grant Ward. As he sat down, exhaling deeply, she gently touched the fresh bruises on his neck.

“Are you okay?” The concern in her tone was clear as crystal.

“I’m fine,” he said, and suddenly she noticed how much she had invaded his personal space in one night, so she took her hands out of his neck and helped him stand up. “I’ll watch the door while you hack into the system,” he pointed at the computer screens behind them. “Do it as fast as you can.”

She quickly took off her other shoe, throwing it in the opposite side of the control room, and sat in front of the computers. The screens covering the wall displayed the views of dozens of security cameras. Ward looked away as she took a flash drive out of her bra and proceeded to plug it in and type frenetically. He leaned forwards and grabbed one of the guard’s guns in the ground, just in case. It took Skye a couple minutes to get into the system, but she didn’t find what she was looking for. However, she noticed something weird in one of the screens: out of the 12 small rectangles showing the views of different cameras and angles, one of them was off—not like the place was completely dark, but like someone purposely turned it off. With a little bit more of typing and searching, she managed to turn the camera on again, and smiled as she saw its view. The black tag in the corner of the rectangle read “safe house”, and Skye found a very interesting item when she zoomed in the image of that camera. Above a few boxes, the weapon they were looking for enlightened the room with a blue, flimsy glow.

“The Chitauri thing is in the safe room,” she informed Ward happily.

“What about the thief who took it?”

“One thing at a time, man,” she joked. “Shouldn’t we go down there and retrieve it?”

“Securing the weapon won’t completely solve the problem; a criminal can still cause trouble without it, so we find this person first,” he answers.

She looked around in desperation and had a thought when she saw something interesting in the back pocket of one of the guards. She jumped out of the chair and pulled a phone out of the pocket, pressing a random button to light up the screen.

“Ward!” Skye called, and he stared at her like she was insane as she ran back to the table. “Find me the cell phones of these guards, please!”

“What the hell are you doing?” He asked, glaring at the screens with a confused look. “What do you need their phones for?”

“Do I ask you questions when you’re fighting bad guys?” She replied impatiently. He was about to answer _yes you actually do_ but she was faster: “Just do it. I’ll explain if I’m right.”

The agent sighed loudly before he shut the door behind him and started searching the pockets of the guard’s uniforms. While Skye hacked into the first phone she’d found before, that required a code to unlock, Ward collected three other cell phones and gave them to her.

“Now tell me what you’re thinking,” he demanded, observing closely her work on the computer.

“Two of the security guards had only one phone like a normal person, while the dude that tried to choke you had two.” Skye gestured toward the three phones he’d given her, that were the same model, and then she showed him the locked one. As she lit up the screens of the three identical ones, they noticed these were just common cell phones, nothing unusual. “This different one is encrypted. Why would one of the guards carry an encrypted phone, Agent Ward?” She inquired suggestively.

He thought about it for a few seconds and came up with the right answer. “Do you think whoever was planning an attack here had contact with one of the guards?”

“It’s highly likely that he—or she, or they—had a man on the inside,” she answered, glad he hadn’t sounded like her idea was completely crazy. “That would explain why someone deliberately turned off the camera of the safe house.”

“Can you unlock this phone and check the calls and texts?”

“It truly hurts me that you even need to ask that,” she complained and he rolled his eyes. “I’m already in, but the logs were wiped out. Wait a minute, if they were erased recently, I can recover them.

In a few minutes, she did as promised and managed to find a few deleted messages between the guard—nicknamed Jax—and a non-identified contact. Skye felt a chill up her spine as she read part of conversation, and quickly noted it was clearly between a criminal and his accomplice.

“I think I just found our killer,” she told Ward as she kept rolling down the screen. Suddenly, she found the most important message and let out a sound of pure incredulity. “ _Shit_. Ward, call Coulson and May now. The target is Arthur Blanchet, they’re going to kill him during his speech at the end of the party!”

Ward didn’t seem nearly as shocked as Skye was. He was more like, _ah, I expected worse_. “Not if we can stop them,” he said, dialing quickly on his burner phone. “Did you identify the killer yet?”

“Give me a few more minutes…” Skye said, completely focused on the computer screen.

“Someone’s going to try to murder Arthur Blanchet,” Ward informed May. “Get him out of here. Skye is working to identify the killer, I’ll contact you again when we found out. By the way, the security staff is somehow involved.”

“Copy that,” May replied and hung up.

The killer hadn’t been stupid enough to identify himself in any of the messages, but, by the tone of the conversation, Skye could tell that he and the guard knew each other pretty well. Using everything she knew about computer science in the shortest time she could pull off, the only thing she found was a three-letter acronym to design the owner of the line.

“Please tell me you got a name,” Ward begged hopelessly when he heard Skye’s dramatically loud sigh.

“Not exactly,” she answered in disappointment. “Only an acronym. R.K.A. We still have one way of finding this person, though… Come here and help me so we can work faster.”

She opened the list of guests and the staff list in different screens and pointed the first one to Ward. “Try to find someone whose name would fit this acronym.”

Skye could feel his warm breath in her skin as they both checked the lists. She thought the killer would be one of the guests and that said killer would’ve bribed that security guard; however, she was the one to find a possible name. And it definitely was bad news. Her brain put the pieces together in a split second and the almost jumped out of the chair.

“Holy mother of god, we need to get out of here _now_ , Ward!” Skye freaked out. “The killer is the goddamn head of security! Roger K. Abbott.”

Skye leaned forward to retrieve her flash drive, and when she turned to Ward again, she suddenly froze with a terrified look on her face. The doorknob behind him was slowly moving to the right. _And this is how we die_ , she thought, her head filling up with scenes from the worst horror movies she’d ever watched. That could only get worse if the person opening the door had a chainsaw.

The only thing she had time to do was grab Ward’s arm and try to drag him back, far from the door, but it obviously didn’t help much. When he was about to ask her what the hell was happening, the door busted open and a gun was pointed at his head.

“Nice to meet you, agents.” The man was taller than Ward—which certainly is _something_ —and was wearing the same uniform as the other guards. Also, he was scary as hell, or maybe Skye’s vision was affected by their highly-likely imminent death. “I’m Roger Keith Abbott, but feel free to call me R.K.A. Or the head of security. Or even the last person you two will ever see,” the man said with a sadistic smirk.

While Skye was trying to deal with the fact that she would die in a few minutes at most, Ward wasn’t so easy to defeat. With an agile move, Ward ducked to take his head out of gunpoint and punched the killer’s hands. The gun _almost_ fell. The two of them engaged in a fight that didn’t last long. Ward’s hands were too busy trying to disarm the man before he fired a shot, which meant he wasn’t able to reach for the gun he’d taken from the security guard before. They were equally strong, and Ward didn’t have any size advantage, so it ended up badly. At one point, when Ward tried to punch the gun out of his hand, R.K.A. pulled the trigger, and the bullet hit Skye’s leg.

The lack of balance due to the impact forced Skye to fall backwards; the last thing that escaped her mouth was a loud groan cut in half when the back of her neck hit one of the wheels of the nearest office chair and she passed out. After hearing her painful cry, Ward put all his energy into a punch that doubtlessly broke the criminal’s nose. He then used the resulting unsteadiness of the killer in his favor to draw the gun he’d taken and shoot R.K.A. in the chest, exactly when he pointed his gun at Ward once again. Had it been a less risky situation, Ward would’ve shot him only once in the shoulder, which hadn’t been possible then, since the killer would still have been able to shoot him back.

The agent turned around and saw Skye lying unconscious on the floor as a blood stain appeared in her dress. He fell to his knees beside her and lifted the edges of the long blue fabric, feeling a gigantic amount of relief when he saw the bullet had only grazed her leg right below her left knee.

He wrapped part of her dress around the wound to contain the bleeding; she was then lifted up and carefully placed in his arms. There was no time to plan a discreet exit strategy, so he simply walked out of the hallway into the ballroom and crossed it toward the main entrance. Oh, and about the fact that everyone was staring at him as he carried an unconscious woman? He didn’t care.

* * *

When Skye woke up, a few things were out of place. Like her being in her bunk having no idea how she’d ended up there. She felt woozy like she’d been asleep for days, and her wound was wrapped in a thick bandage.

With no clue of what had happened in the past few hours, she got up from the bed, which caused a lot of pain to spread through her left leg as soon as she put her weight on it. She let a grunt escape her mouth but managed to stand up and walk out of her bunk. All the lights were out, except for the one in the lounge where the team would usually hang out—not that there was much time to hang out—or play scrabble.

She hesitated for a few seconds before deciding to walk to the lounge. Every single step hurt like hell, and using the wall for balance as she faltered didn’t help much. It wasn’t that big of a surprise when she saw Ward sitting by the bar with a glass in his hand, staring apathetically at a bottle of bourbon. He was still wearing the same clothes as earlier, but without the jacket and bow tie. Also, his hair wasn’t nearly as tidy as before, and a small cut crossed his cheek. For some weird reason, though, Skye thought he looked more attractive like this—the agent she knew instead of the elegant, cheerful lawyer he’d pretended to be.

“Oh, hello.” He sounded tired, but glad to see her awake.

“Hey,” she mumbled hoarsely and then coughed because her throat was dry as a desert. “What happened? Why can’t I remember coming back to the Bus?” She looked around, quite confused. Apparently, he was the only member of the team who was still awake. “What time is it?”

“Should I start writing down your questions or will you breathe a little and let me answer?”

Tired of standing up and feeling like her energy had been drained out of her body, Skye let herself fall on the couch and took a deep breath.

“You okay?” He asked, turning around to look at her.

“Fine. You?” She replied, eyeing the small bruise on his cheek, result of a punch.

He took a sip of his drink.  “Well, I’m not the one who was shot.”

“Which reminds me that you didn’t answer any of my questions. I remember nothing after being shot. Did I fall asleep?”

“For a little while, yes… You fell back and hit the back of your head. You did, though, wake up screaming when we brought you back to the bus and Simmons was cleaning your wound. She gave you a weak sedative.

Well, that explained the lightheadedness, and confirmed what she feared. “Shit, I’m so sorry.” She looked down, embarrassed by the guilt.”

He frowned. “You’re sorry? …for having been shot?”

“For blowing the op _by_ being shot,” she said, cursing herself mentally. What an idiot. “I should’ve been more careful, and—“

“Skye, don’t flatter yourself.” She looked up to see if he was _actually_ laughing—not like laughing out loud, but that cute chuckle people make when they’re excited to deliver good news. He refilled his glass of bourbon and sat on the chair beside the couch. “You getting shot didn’t blow the op, it just prevented you from watching the end of it. After you identified the killer you were looking for, I had to kill him, then we took the weapon and the target was taken to another safe house. The weapon is here, we’re taking it to the Hub.”

“Oh, that’s great,” she said blissfully and surprised. “So, I missed all the action, but everything’s okay now?”

“If by ‘all the action’ you mean me getting hit in the face, carrying you out of the mansion and Simmons patching up your leg then—“

“You _carrying me_?” She giggled. “Now _that_ must have been priceless, I’m going to ask Fitzsimmons for footage later.”

“What matters is that we completed the mission,” he tried to change the subject, annoyed, but she wasn’t done pissing him of just yet.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Since when do you ask for permission before interrogating me?” He questioned, half-heartedly bothered.

“Right. So, that French guy at the gala… What did he say to you?” Skye remembered Ward looking a bit disconcerted back then, which had made her curious. Suddenly, he seemed quite interested in the content of his glass instead of her. “C’mon, tell me.”

He shrugged, facing her again. “He simply asked me if I would mind him asking you to dance with him.”

Skye couldn’t help but laugh.

“Are you serious?” She didn’t know what surprised her more, his answer or how he had reacted at the guy’s question. “What was your answer?”

“Well, we couldn’t trust a stranger in the middle of an undercover mission, so I had to pretend Daniel was jealous, and wanted to dance with you—with Henley first,” he explained in a defensive tone.

“ _Daniel_ ,” she mocked in disbelief. “Alright.”

“What?” He scoffed angrily. Damn, she knew what made him tick. “What about that kiss, Skye? Now _that_ was Henley’s reaction, wasn’t it?” He replied with an unusual sarcasm that took her by surprise.

Oh, _crap_. Skye immediately regretted teasing him as she felt her face heating. “What can I say?” She snickered. “ _Henley_ didn’t have a choice.”

“Yeah, _okay_.” He finished his bourbon and rested the empty glass on the table in front of them.

The silence that followed was the longest one they had _ever_ experienced on the plane—neither Skye or Ward broke it for an unbelievable amount of minutes, nor did they dare looking at each other. At some point, it started to feel like a competition in which whoever said something first would lose. Finally, after what had felt like an eternity, Ward got up from his chair.

“Bedtime?”  She asked, relieved by the end of that overwhelming quietude.

When she left the couch, the vertigo got the best of her. As soon as she stood up, maybe having moved too quickly, the room started spinning lightly and she lost her balance, her leg accidentally hitting the edge of the table, right on the covered wound.

“That _fucking_ sedative—“ She cursed, closing her eyes and pressing her fingertips on her temples.

She heard Ward’s rushed footsteps and felt his hands holding her shoulders firmly, but kept her eyes closed until the dizziness ceased. When her eyes opened and she automatically looked up to face Ward—he was so tall that pretty much everyone in the team had already gotten used to the height difference—they were so close that the air escaped her lungs. Mindlessly, she looked at his hands on her shoulders, so he took them off.

“Apparently the effect of the sedative hasn’t worn off yet,” he said in a low, appealing voice. _Idiot_.

Denying Skye wanted to get closer to him would be a lie.

“Yeah, I guess it didn’t,” she replied.

For a brief moment where none of them moved, Skye searched her brain for a reason to do what she was about to. However, the only thing she could come up with was definitely irritating, so she did it anyway.

Ward didn’t even flinch when Skye grabbed his collar—more calmly than she had before, sort of waiting to see if he’d back out—and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. (Maybe because he wanted it about as much as she did.) He simply cupped her face in one hand and slid the other to her waist. Honestly, if his reaction hadn’t been like this, she would’ve been deadly embarrassed to the point of running away and locking herself in her bunk. She ran her hands through his soft hair as their lips moved against each other and Ward’s hands on her back pulled her as close as possible.

The attraction they both clearly felt for each other had resulted in a longing, fiery kiss that left the two of them panting. They felt each other’s warm exhalations as their lips parted and their foreheads were still touching, Ward holding Skye’s face in his hands.

“Are you going to tell me that was Henley again?” He asked with a smirk.

It would be easier if she could say that honestly, but in reality, all she had wanted was to kiss him as Grant Ward and Skye, not as their covert identities.

“Not this time,” she mouthed, walking away from him. “Good night, _Grant_.”

He watched as she limped toward her bunk. “Good night, _Skye_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Yes, that was a Dollhouse reference. Anyone?)  
> Thank you so much for reading my story! I enjoy reviews very much, by the way. :)

**Author's Note:**

> So, this story ended up getting way longer than I expected, so I divided it in two chapters and the second one is pretty much double the size of this (like 4 thousand words). I'll be posting it maybe later or tomorrow!  
> Also, I'd like to thank my friend (@lovegkp on Twitter) for some ideas and motivation to write this (and begging me to write more jealous!Ward.) Thanks, Be!  
> P.S.: Their undercover names, Henley and Daniel, are based on my favorite Now You See Me characters. ;)


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